This is indeed a novel of suspense and intrigue. Plus a lot of description of forests, mountains and fishing. My, lots of fishing. It was a look into how the Brits conducted their covert activities in Tito-ist Yogoslavia - good to read that there was a time when one had to learn codes, send off telegrams, and rely upon low tech means of infiltrating someone else's territory (languages and a bally good peasant disguise!). The book covers one foray into Royalist territory, where those peasants are just as unpleasant as the Tito-ist peasants, but there you go. Not quite sure if the hero gets his girl in the end, but at least she's alive. A period piece. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/767689.htm...

A more serious effort by Durrell here than his collection of humorous diplomatic stories which also drew on his time in Belgrade. The cover describes it as being in the genre of John Buchan but in fact I think it's pretty obvious that Durrell was trying to cash in on the James Bond phenomenon (Casino Royale was published two years earlier, in 1953, and Live and Let Die in 1954) by bringing his British secret agent hero to untangle murky doings in Serbia in (one assumes) early 1948.

It's a very nicely observed book in terms of the scenery, the people, the fishing (especially the fishing!), the weather, the politics (though in fact Durrell arrived in Belgrade to work only in 1949 - but I suppose he may have explored there from Corfu before the war). Unfortunately Durrell didn't quite pull it together in terms of plot. The narrative makes perfect sense, but our hero, Methuen, appears curiously unchanged by it all; he does get the girl out of danger, but it is not at all clear that he gets the girl; no huge lessons are learnt about love, loyalty or heroism (I was struck that the Royalist rebels were portrayed as being as unattractive as Tito's Communist officials and militia). So although it's a charming enough book, I felt a bit flat at the end of it. ( )